Recontextualising violence,power and nature: The next twenty years of critical geopolitics?

Twenty years ago the intellectual projects that have become known as critical geopolitics emerged at the end of the cold war as a series of critiques of geopolitical reasoning. Drawing heavily on Edward Said's formulations of Orientalism the critical analyses probed the dense cultural productions of danger, the rationalisations for intervention and the logics of “Western” foreign policies. The geographical specifications of the world in the political discourses used to justify numerous imperial actions, and the rationales for the provision of security came under sustained scrutiny. Now two decades later despite the supposed end of history and endless invocations of globalization, the themes of empire and Orientalism remain at the heart of the Western geopolitical imaginary, explicitly structuring how the security intellectuals of our time plan for war and justify the construction of their military machines. Given the continuing dangers of warfare in a biosphere that is being radically destabilized by the modes of economy and violence these geopolitical texts legitimize, the necessity for critique remains compelling. But given the proliferation of uses of the term critical geopolitics, and the numerous disciplinary concerns encompassed by it, perhaps the time has come to narrow its focus once again to its core themes which involve confronting and challenging the geographical reasoning used in the legitimizations of contemporary warfare.     

Geopolitics at the margins? Reconsidering genealogies of critical geopolitics

Critical geopolitics has become one of the most vibrant parts of political geography. However it remains a particularly western way of knowing which has been much less attentive to other traditions of thinking. This paper engages with Pan-Africanism, and specifically the vision of the architect of post-colonial Tanzania, Julius Nyerere, to explore this overlooked contribution to critical engagements with geopolitics. Pan-Africanism sought to forge alternative post-colonial worlds to the binary geopolitics of the Cold War and the geopolitical economy of neo-colonialism. The academic division of labour has meant that these ideas have been consigned to African studies rather than being drawn into wider debates around the definitions of key disciplinary concepts. However Nyerere's continental thinking can be seen as a form of geopolitical imagination that challenges dominant neo-realist projections, and which still has much to offer contemporary political geography.     

A revolution in military geopolitics?

This paper looks into the recent discussions within the US military community of a coming or current ‘revolution in military affairs’ (RMA) which is said to imply fundamental changes in military geopolitical imaginations and practices (military geopolitics). In a first step, an account of the rhetorical and the conceptual part of the discourse of the RMA is conducted. In a second step, the proclaimed RMA is situated within a wider cumulative technological and organizational development in warfare after the Second World War. In a third step, special attention is given to geopolitical incongruities or contradictions apparent within the discourse of the RMA, and between the rhetorical part of the RMA and more conventional geopolitical practices and imaginations. In a conclusion, the promise of an actor–network approach in further investigations of contemporary techno-geopolitical discourses and practices is spoken for.     

Matter in or out of place? Bicycle parking strategies and their effects on people,practices and places

This study explores what bicycle parking strategies tell us about the place of mobility objects in contemporary urban streetscapes. It examines the bicycle's liminality by combining approaches from practice theory with Mary Douglas' concept of ‘matter out of place’. Much research on cycling has concentrated on the bicycle in movement, yet in our research, based in four relatively high-cycling English urban areas, a common theme was concern about the bicycle when not in use. Bicycles at rest were perceived as threatened or threatening, risky or at-risk; affected by theft, vandalism, the weather, official and familial disapproval. In the study, we link this to the tenuous place of urban cycling in England; while bicycle ownership is widespread, everyday cycling remains marginalised and this shapes the place of the bicycle resting on city streets, in homes and in workplaces. Bicycles waiting for their owners are often ‘matter out of place’. This is seen within the context of broader motorised landscapes which have made driving easier through locating driving competences in the car itself, while comparable cycling competences remain on the outside—with the cyclist.     

Administrative learning or political blaming? Public servants,parliamentary committees and the drama of public accountability

In theory, within Westminster systems the buck stops with the minister. Ministers are responsible for the actions of their departments and accountable for policy outcomes. In practice, it is often senior public servants rather than their ministerial masters who face the fierce questions of parliamentary committees when things go wrong. This article uses dramaturgy theory and blame theory to assess whether the nature of the parliamentary committee setting encourages or inhibits opportunities for a ‘learning’ type of accountability. Through a comparative study of committee appearances by public servants in the UK and Australia, the article argues that the adversarial nature of committee hearings encourages ‘blame games’ that do little to guarantee better decision-making in the future.

从理论上讲,西敏制下的大臣再不能推脱责任。大臣需要对其部门的行动、对政策结果负责。但在实践中,出了问题,通常是高级官员而非各部大臣面对议会专门委员会的激烈质询。本文借用演剧理论及责备理论评估议会内委员会的设置是有利于还是不利于学习型的问责。通过比较英澳两国议会委员会的样态,作者认为委员会听证的对抗性质只是鼓励“责备”,并不利于未来的正确决策。     

Tourism planning and place making: place-making or placemaking?

ABSTRACT

Tourism destination planning and marketing are fundamentally place making actions intended to shape the image and imageability of a place. Place making is an innate human behavior, ranging from the organic and unplanned actions of individuals, defined here as ‘place-making,’ to planned and intentional global theming by governments and tourism authorities, defined here as ‘placemaking.’ Place-making and placemaking are ends on a continuum of options, with most places have a mix of local and global elements. These elements also range from the tangible (base in urban design) to the intangible (peoplescapes and imaginations). The tools of place making are essentially the same for both organic place-making and planned placemaking, but the intentions and outcomes can vary enormously. Tourism development, as an economic activity, almost always has a neoliberal planned placemaking agenda. Organic place-making emerges through individual agency, which if allowed to proceed, will make its imprint even in a heavily master planned tourism landscape. An understanding of place-making and placemaking gives insight into research questions on the political economy of tourism and the roles of hosts and guest in co-producing tourism places. Examining the elements of place making in a tourism landscape can more clearly identify how different worldview perspectives have contribute over time to the making of tourism places, and thereby assist in planning for the future development of destination communities.     

Climate migrants and new identities? The geopolitics of embracing or rejecting mobility

New evidence is emerging to suggest that climate change mobility is giving effect to changing forms of island identity among Tuvaluans and i-Kiribati. This nascent shift prompts a number of questions addressed in this paper. What, for example, does climate change migration mean for island identity and its geographic performance? How does the spatialization of identity inform shared experiences of climate change, and how does identity assist in the formation of shared positions from which to advocate for change? Drawing on discourses of sedentarism and mobilization among Tuvaluan and i-Kiribati, we explore performances of identity related to climate change being fashioned and refashioned in different contexts.     

Location or dis-location? Towards a conceptualization of people and place in the care-giving experience

Over the last two decades we have seen an increased interest in informal care within both political and academic communities in the UK. This has stemmed in large part from an increased emphasis on the home-space as the preferred site of care provision and a resultant increase in the complexity of the care-giving relationship. The explicitly spatial dimensions of this caring relationship, however, are vastly under-researched. This paper represents one attempt to redress the gap by examining the importance of place, and its conceptualization, in the care of frail older people. In doing so, the paper focuses, firstly, on the spatial manifestation of care at various scales, identifying some of the processes behind variations in the care-giving experience and, secondly, using the example of dementia care, it considers how Auge´'s concepts of anthropological place and non-space, when applied to domestic and institutional care settings, can facilitate a more nuanced understanding of the importance of people and place in the construction and delivery of care to frail older people.     

Troubled water? Acquiescence,conflict, and the politics of place in watershed management

Controversy surrounds proposed revisions in access and recreation policy at central Massachusetts' Wachusett Reservoir, a crucial source of drinking water for metropolitan Boston. This policy conflict illuminates a broader tension between rural and exurban resource-supply areas and metropolitan areas that are committed to resource extraction and urban growth. Boston dominates the reservoir region and extracts its resources, while less powerful local residents disagree with and sometimes protest against policies detrimental or perceived to be detrimental to their interests. Despite this tension, data gathered from surveys at the reservoir, supplementary interviews, archival research, and attendance at public meetings reveal that many potential sites of acrimony are characterized by positive attempts to reclaim place rather than direct opposition to outside domination. Findings suggest that residents in the reservoir region have attached their own values to the reservoir, including both rational valuation of specific non-drinking-water benefits and non-instrumental valuation of the reservoir as an integral part of residents' lifeworlds. Although tensions persist between Boston and the Wachusett region, area residents' complex valuation of the reservoir as a space of utility and a place of everyday life suggests opportunities for consensual resource coalitions and initiatives.     

Lost in conceptualization: Reading the “new Cold War” with critical geopolitics

Focusing on the debates on energy security in Germany, this paper analyzes the structure, logic, and circulation of the “new Cold War” as a geopolitical narrative. We use the literature in critical geopolitics to analyze the conceptual implications of an apparent dissociation between the media and governmental stance toward the new Cold War and its embedded geopolitical logic. The relationship between the “kind” of geopolitics inherent in the new Cold War and the different “forms” in which it circulates suggests a blurring of boundaries between all such geopolitical forms, through multiple crossings-over between institutions, textual genres, and circulating actors. The media presence of the New Cold War also highlights the ambiguity of the “popular” in popular geopolitics, which is further refracted on other geopolitical forms which share its characteristics. This not only makes imperative the more precise formulation of key conceptual categories such as popular or banal geopolitics, but also calls into question the link between the state and particular geopolitical logics, as well as the relationship between the mass media and geopolitics.     

Hard to miss,easy to blame? Peacelines,interfaces and political deaths in Belfast during the Troubles

As Northern Ireland moves further from the period of conflict known as the ‘Troubles’, attention has increasingly focussed on the social and material vestiges of that conflict; Northern Ireland is still a deeply-divided society in terms of residential segregation between Catholic nationalists and Protestant unionists, and urban areas are still, indeed increasingly, characterised by large defensive walls, known as ‘peacelines’, which demark many of the dividing lines between the two communities. In recent years a body of literature has emerged which has highlighted the spatial association between patterns of conflict fatality and proximity to peacelines. This paper assesses that relationship, arguing that previous analyses have failed to fully take account of the ethnic complexity of inner-city Belfast in their calculations. When this is considered, patterns of fatality were more intense within the cores or ‘sanctuaries’ of highly segregated Catholic and Protestant communities rather than at the fracture zones or ‘interfaces’ between them where peacelines have always been constructed. Using census data at a high spatial resolution, this paper also provides the first attempt to provide a definition of the ‘interface’ in clear geographic terms, a spatial concept that has hitherto appeared amorphous in academic studies and media coverage of Belfast during and since the Troubles. In doing so it embodies both the material and demographic aspects of social division in Northern Ireland, and suggests an urgent need to reappraise the true role of these forms of social boundary in influencing patterns of violent conflict.     

Identity and geopolitics in Hergé's Adventures of Tintin

This is a study of identity and geopolitics in Hergé's Adventures of Tintin, a series of adventure comics created from 1929 to 1976. The Tintin comics became increasingly popular throughout the mid-twentieth century, and their creator, Hergé, is still a subject of intrigue in the press and popular publications. Recent work in popular geopolitics has pioneered the use of comics as a new type of source material in critical geography. Hergé's approach to the comics format combines an iconic protagonist with detailed and textured environments that draw upon some of the geopolitical discourses of the twentieth century. Three forms of geopolitical meaning are identified within the Tintin comics: discourses of colonialism, European pre-eminence and anti-Americanism. These overlapping trends amount to different facets of one single discourse, which places European ideologies at the centre of its world-view. This is highlighted by focusing on three geographical spaces of the Tintin series, and by contextualising the life and selected works of Hergé.     

Safe place or ‘catastrophic society’? Perspectives on hazards and disasters in Canada

The essay introduces public risk and destructive events in Canada, their conceptual and policy implications. The discussion is developed in four main steps. First, some widely held, if contradictory, perceptions of public security are identified. A relatively high level of personal safety for most Canadians is attributed to large government and private investments. But these have not prevented recurring disasters, nor singular vulnerability for certain groups and parts of the country. Meanwhile, some novel dangers of modern living compromise the safety of all Canadians. The second section examines evidence of losses from a broad range of hazards, and related, risk‐averting investments. The national geography of dangers is shown to have been transformed and reorganized by post‐World War II developments. Losses, even from natural hazards, are identified with common, nationwide behaviours and infrastructure, especially motorised mobility and consumer products. A fourth section looks at some appropriate conceptual frameworks. Charles Perrow's idea of ‘organizational society’ is considered, and Ulrich Beck's of ‘risk society’, including his view that late modern societies shift towards a ‘catastrophic’ condition. In general, the Canadian scene and these ideas support a human ecological view of modernity, but challenge an agent‐specific and extreme event approach that had prevailed in hazards geography. ‘Manufactured’ vulnerability is a neglected but decisive element. The social space of risks is shown to be recast around changing priorities for, and social justice in, public security and emerging crises of personal safety. Risk aversion turns upon questions of the acceptability of risks, acceptance for and by whom, and how it is achieved. For academic work, this suggests a reexamination of risk knowledge and its ‘social construction’. La dissertation aborde le sujet des évènements destructifs et du risque public au Canada, leurs implications conceptuels et de principe. La discussion est développée en quatre étapes principales. Premièrement, certaines perceptions de la sécurité publique tenues par beaucoup, non sans être contradictoires, sont identifiées. Un niveau relativement élevé de sécurité personnelle pour la plupart des canadiens est attribuéà un gouvernement de grande taille et aux investissements privés mais ceux‐ci n'ont pas empêché des désastres de se reproduire, ni une vulnérabilité singulière pour certains groupes et certains endroits du pays. Entretemps, de nouveaux dangers de la vie moderne compromettent la sécurité de tous les canadiens. La deuxième section examine la preuve d'une perte à partir d'une gamme étendue de risques et d'investissement risqués et apparentés. II est montré que la géographie nationale des dangers a été transformée et réorganisée par des développements de l'après seconde guerre mondiale. Les pertes, même provenant de risques naturels, sont identifiées avec des comportements et infrastructures en commun et dans tout le pays, spécialement la mobilité motorisée et les produits de consommation. Une quatrième section examine les supports de travail conceptuels appropriés. L'idée de Charles Perrow d'une ‘société structurelle’ est prise en considération, et celle d'Ulrich Beck d'une ‘sociétéà risque’ comprenant sa vue que les dernières sociétés modernes s'accélèrent vers une condition ‘catastrophique’. En général, le monde canadien et ces idées soutiennent une vue humaine et écologique de la modernité, mais défie un agent spécifique et une approche extrême des évènements qui avait prévalu dans la géographie des risques. La vulnérabilité‘fabriquée’ est un élément négligé mais décisif. II est démontré que le rôle de l'espace de risques social est redistribué selon des priorités qui changent pour, et la justice sociale dans, la sécurité publique et les crises qui émergent dans la sécurité personnelle. L'aversion des risques révolve autour des questions d'acceptabilité des risques, risques acceptés pour et par qui, et la façon dont cela est accompli. En ce qui concerne un travail théorique, cela suggère une réexamination de la connaissance des risques et de sa ‘construction sociale’.     

Local history as productive nostalgia? Change,continuity and sense of place in rural England

Local history groups are often negatively associated with a tendency to indulge in nostalgic practices that yearn for a romanticized past and propagate resistance to change. Their role in local politics and power networks (particularly in relation to planning and development processes) has also been critiqued as exacerbating issues of social inequality and exclusion. While not contesting the realities of such arguments, this paper adds nuance to such debates using the notion of ‘productive’ or ‘mobile’ nostalgia to explore possibilities for more positive renderings of local history and heritage activities. Empirical evidence from qualitative research in a rural village in Norfolk, England, is drawn on to demonstrate the role of these practices in providing a sense of continuity amid a continuously changing locale through the reassertion of place identities and attachments. Although by no means apolitical, this process need not necessarily be one of preservationism and resistance to change, but can be a mechanism through which residents are able to accept, or even welcome, changes to the social and physical constitution of their village. The paper also critically considers the value of productive nostalgia as a concept through which to explore local history practices and wider heritage movements.     

The critical geopolitics of the Uzbekistan–Kyrgyzstan Ferghana Valley boundary dispute, 1999–2000

In 1999 the Uzbekistan–Kyrgyzstan Ferghana Valley boundary became a brutal reality in the lives of borderland inhabitants, when it became the key issue in a crisis of inter-state relations. Mainstream explanations have suggested that the Soviet boundary legacy and convergent post-Soviet macro-economic policies made conflict inevitable. Drawing on critical geopolitics theory, this paper questions the implicit determinism in these accounts, and seeks to augment them by a political analysis. It suggests that ‘the border crisis’ was the product of the interaction of complex domestic power struggles in both countries, the boundary itself acting as a material and discursive site where elites struggled for the power to inscribe conflicting gendered, nationalistic visions of geopolitical identity. It concludes by insisting upon a moral imperative to expose and challenge the geographical underpinnings of state violence.     

A Hostile Takeover of Nature? Placing Value in Conservation Finance

Conservation finance is a nascent field that claims to “deliver maximum conservation impacts, while, at the same time, generating returns for investors” (Credit Suisse/WWF). While geographers have questioned the ability of conservation finance to play a significant role in international biodiversity conservation, an emerging cohort of boutique private equity firms are actively generating returns on North American conservation projects. This raises the question: how are these firms generating profits, and in turn, returns for their shareholders? Drawing from a Marxian understanding of finance as redistributive, I argue that these firms are generating profits through a process similar to a corporate hostile takeover. Using the examples of ranchland and timberland investment in the United States, I show that (1) the materialities and historical geographies of these landscapes play a crucial role their monetization, and (2) shareholder returns are generated through a combination of traditional real estate sales and revaluations, public monies, and commodity production.